the north, most finding their homes reduced to rubble, said Joseph Hazboun, CNEWA’s regional director for Palestine and Israel. CNEWA and its partners were working to help provide shelter, water and medical aid, noting that clearing the rubble to rebuild could take up to three years. To support CNEWA’s work in Gaza, go to www.cnewa.org/donate. Firsts for Pope Leo’s Papacy Pope Leo XIV issued his first apostolic exhortation, “Dilexi Te” (“I Have Loved You”), on 9 October. “Love for the poor — whatever the form their poverty may take — is the evangelical hallmark of a church faithful to the heart of God,” he wrote. He said many Christians “need to go back and re-read the Gospel” because they have forgotten that faith and love for the poor go hand in hand. At the time of publication, Pope Leo was scheduled for his first trip outside Italy with plans to visit Turkey, 27-30 November, and from there to Lebanon until 2 December. The trip was built around the promise of Pope Francis to join Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople in marking the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, at which the foundational tenets of Christianity were formulated into what is now the first half of the Nicene Creed, recited by all mainline Christians. In Lebanon, Pope Leo was expected to commemorate the 2020 port explosions in Beirut. CNEWA Launches Centennial Catholic Near East Welfare Association kicked off its centennial with two gala events — the first in Ottawa, 7 November, and the second in New York, 1 December. Born as empires
crumbled in Europe and the Middle East, CNEWA became an instrument of the Holy See to serve and bolster the Eastern churches in their service to those most in need, especially survivors of war and genocide, revolution and civil war, social chaos and poverty. A century later, CNEWA continues its service as an agency of healing and hope, working for, through and with the Eastern churches in the Middle East, Northeast Africa, India and Eastern Europe. Initiatives to mark the centennial will be announced in the new year. New Eastern Saint, Blessed This autumn, the universal church recognized two martyrs of the Eastern Catholic churches. On 19 October, Pope Leo XIV canonized Armenian Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Choukrallah Maloyan in St. Peter’s Square. He served as archbishop of Mardin in Ottoman Turkey from 1911 until his death in June 1915. Arrested by Ottoman authorities during the mass roundup of Armenian and Assyro-Chaldean Christians, recognized today as the Armenian genocide, he refused to renounce his Christian faith and was subsequently tortured and killed.
On 27 September, the Rev. Petro Oros, a priest of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo, was beatified during an outdoor Divine Liturgy in Bilky, Ukraine. Henchmen of the Soviet regime murdered the 36-year-old priest in 1953 as he brought the Eucharist to a sick person. Grant Monies Received The generosity of people of good will, with their prayers and financial gifts, brings to life the mission of CNEWA as it witnesses the Gospel in service to the Eastern churches. Thanks to Catholics across the United States, CNEWA has received more than $1.5 million from U.S. parishes and dioceses for its life-saving work in Gaza and the wider Middle East. In addition to regular sustaining contributions from donors and friends worldwide, CNEWA received several significant grants, including $250,000 from the Knights of Columbus for its efforts in Gaza and the Middle East; $100,000 from the Diocese of Venice in Florida for its work in Ukraine; and $20,000 from the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation for emergency relief in the Holy Land. To learn more about CNEWA’s grant program, contact Bradley Kerr at bkerr@ cnewa.org.
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100 YEARS OF HEALING & HOPE
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